Britain’s best coastal walks

Whatever the weather, exploring the UK’s unique coastline is a great way to spend a bank holiday. Here are some routes along the shore to try out

1.Great Orme, Llandudno, Conwy

How hard is it? 5 miles, moderate (some short steep sections)

Walk around the Great Orme’s rugged summit, with heathland flowers and butterflies, and the world’s largest ancient copper mine. The National Trust has just bought the area of Parc Farm, on the plateau, for £1 million, so Great Orme’s rare botanical and archaeological treasures should be secure.

Map: OS Explorer: OL17
Start: Llandudno Pier, Happy Valley Road, Conwy, LL30 2LP (OS ref SH783830)The walk: Follow Happy Valley Trail (“To Summit/TS” arrows, blue-ringed posts/BP) via Happy Valley Gardens, Penmynydd Isa farmhouse (774834), St Tudno’s Church (770838). Up summit road; in 300m fork right (TS, BP). In 150m (768836) right for 1½ miles beside Parc Farm wall, anticlockwise to SE corner (765831) below summit station. Track past yellow-ringed post to brow of hill. Half right over ridge; half left to post near erratic boulder (769828). Zig Zag Trail (“To Town”, black-ringed posts) back to Llandudno Many thanks for visiting. Before we carry on I want to say thank you to http://www.hotelsintown.co.uk/ for their continued support and the support of their network. Having a company and team like this means a lot to us as we continue to grow our public blog.Lunch: Haulfre Tea Rooms, Cwlach Road (01492 876731)Getting there: Rail to Llandudno. Road: Llandudno is signposted off A55 between Colwyn Bay and Conwy
Info: Llandudno TIC 01492 577577; visitllandudno.org.uk;nationaltrust.org.uk. Download trail at thetim.es/orme0815

2. Hartland Quay, Devon

How hard is it? 7 ½ miles; moderate/hard, lots of ups and downs along cliffs

This route follows an isolated and savage stretch of cliffs to Hartland Point, where dozens of ships have been wrecked on the rocks and reefs. Country lanes lead south past farms with Betjemanesque names — Blagdon, Blegberry, Berry and Wargery. St Nectan’s Church at Stoke has a fabulously carved screen; Speke’s Mill Mouth a tremendous waterfall.

On a peninsular spit at the wide mouth of the River Aln stands the red-roofed village of Alnmouth, pretty as a picture. Cycle tracks lead you south along the dunes of Buston Links, beautiful with cranesbill and harebells. Walk the beach and admire terns fishing with precision splashdowns; then make inland for Warkworth with its great castle.

The old fishing village of Polperro with its steep, narrow streets is beautiful. The ground floors of the harbour-front houses were once fish-salting cellars. Past them you are on the South West Coast Path, which skirts the steep slopes of the Warren before reaching Talland on its lovely bay. On along a cliff walk round Hore Point and Portnadler Bay with great views over St George’s Island, before rounding the rock pools of Hannafore Beach and walking up the Looe River into West Looe.

The only buildings in Shingle Street are weatherboarded houses and a strip of coastguard cottages at the end of a narrow road. The hamlet looks out to sea across a shingle beach bright with yellow-horned poppy and white-flowered sea kale. This is wonderfully lonely walking country. On the circuit of Oxley Marshes, the flat grazing land north of Shingle Street, the chances are you’ll see nobody. The seawall path passes a row of Martello towers built to deter a Napoleonic invasion.

How hard is it? Up to 2 miles; easy but rugged underfoot. Bring binoculars

Up to 200,000 seabirds breed on this small isle — arctic skuas, puffins, gulls, guillemots. In August the youngsters have fledged; they are learning to fly and taking wing for their migration journeys. Keep an eye out for minke whales and grey seals prospecting for their own pupping season in October. Don’t miss the baronial Main Light lighthouse (1816) with its cast-iron foghorn pipes.

How hard is it? 7½ miles, easy/moderate. NB: Le Vaû Varin and Le Vaû ès Fontaines bays are impassable at very high tides. Start the walk an hour after high water.

Pristine rockpooling bays are followed by woodland paths to Noirmont headland with its wartime bunkers and guns, then Portelet Common to see stonechats, linnets and dartford warblers. St Brelade’s Bay, medieval frescoes in St Brelade’s church; then a scrubby cliff path to La Corbière.

The sandy paths and woodland tracks of Ainsdale Dunes and the neighbouring national nature reserve make for fascinating walking. From the most extensive dune system on England’s northwest coast — a mass of sandhills fortified by marram grass and bright with flowers — you enter pinewoods, before reaching the superb broad beach of Ainsdale Sands.

How hard is it? 11 miles, steep climbs/descents on outward leg (short cut back to St Ives by bus)

The outward leg is one of the finest stretches of the South West Coast Path, a beautiful westward run of heath-covered headlands, granite cliffs and rocky coves where seals bob and fulmars wheel. Enjoy lunch in the excellent Tinners Arms at Zennor, and pop into St Senara’s Church to see the 600-year-old carving of the mermaid. Then head back along the Old Coffin Road through the fields and past the hilltop house at Higher Tregerthen, once the home of the occultist Aleister Crowley, the “wickedest man in the world”.

Casual visitors don’t tend to penetrate the tangled Essex lanes as far as Tollesbury. Their loss, your gain. East of the village lie salt marshes and muddy creeks; here you’ll find some lovely old wooden sail lofts, and a bright scarlet lightship. The sea wall path skirts lonely, peaceful marshes along the Blackwater Estuary. Pass the remains of Tollesbury Pier, once the terminus of the Kelvedon, Tiptree & Tollesbury Pier Light Railway, and stroll back along a farm lane.

How hard is it? 3½ miles, easy. NB check tides (thebeachguide.co.uk); beach path liable to flooding on very high tides of 7-plus metres.

From Ravenglass with its miniature steam railway, head south past the remarkable remains of a Roman bath house to reach the widening estuary of the River Esk. A riverside stretch leads to a great view of Eskmeals Viaduct, then a beach walk back to Ravenglass.

Before setting off east, it’s well worth strolling west along the beach to admire the extraordinary geological sandwich of Hunstanton’s cliffs — white chalk on top, brown sandstone below, and a thick filling of crimson Hunstanton red chalk. Eastward, the sandy coast path skirts the dunes, then ventures out through Holme Nature Reserve (where you may see curlew, sandpiper and avocet) to run along the edge of salt marsh and sea before heading inland to Thornham and the bus.

The wide, ornamental promenade of Folkestone soon gives way to the tangled undercliff of the Warren, above which runs the North Downs Way with wonderful views out to France. On along the White Cliffs above Samphire Hoe, a country park built on Channel Tunnel excavation spoil; over Shakespeare Cliff where the Bard brought King Lear to rant and rave; and down to Dover with a fabulous view over castle and harbour.

How hard is it? 8 miles, hard. Burns and river mouth to cross (prepare to get wet)

Walking orchid-spattered cliffs, crossing rough moorland and the rushing Kearvaig River, then on to the pristine sands of Kearvaig Bay — this adventure walk in northern Scotland is one of the loneliest, wildest and most beautiful in these islands.

Walk north to reach the mighty cliffs of Flamborough Head, 300ft ramparts of chalk falling sheer to a milky sea. A clifftop path leads west to Bempton Cliffs where intrepid professional gatherers, swinging in harnesses, once collected seabird eggs. Now the birds nest under RSPB protection — more than 200,000 black-backed and herring gulls, fulmars, puffins, razorbills and kittiwakes.

The small village of Llanmadoc lies at the outer edge of the Gower peninsula. A lane drops downhill to the shore of the Loughor Estuary, and from here you follow a marsh path north through fields, sand dunes, sallow groves and a whispering pinewood. Wading birds can be seen on the mudflats, dark green fritillary butterflies in the dunes (look for them on purple flowers). The dune gentian may be in flower here, too.

Abbotsbury is full of attractions — thatched stone cottages, a 14th-century tithe barn, abbey ruins and the Swannery. Climb Chapel Hill for the view from St Catherine’s Chapel: the Dorset Downs, Isle of Portland and Chesil Beach. Follow the South West Coast Path to the shore of the Fleet and walk east along this brackish waterway, looking across at the mighty shingle bank of Chesil Beach. Return through Langton Herring and Rodden across sheep meadows and a ridge of breezy downland.

Map: OS Explorer: OL15
Start: Abbotsbury, DT3 4JL (OS ref SY577854)
The walk: Climb Chapel Hill; then follow South West Coast Path east for 4½ miles. At footbridge south of Under Cross Plantation (616814), left inland to Langton Herring. Road to Rodden Ridge (610832); path north to Rodden, then ridge bridleway west for 2 miles via West Elworth (598847) to B3157 (584851). Left into Abbotsbury
Lunch: Elm Tree Inn, Langton Herring (01305 871257;theelmtreeinn.com) Getting there B3157 from Weymouth
Info: Weymouth TIC (01305 785747)

19. Chichester Harbour and Dell Quay, West Sussex

How hard is it? 4½ miles, easy shore path

Halyards chinking and boats bobbing in Chichester Marina, then a wonderful walk up the side of Chichester Harbour where water glitters at high tide, while low tide reveals gleaming mudbanks picked over by waders and gulls.